Analysis of The night wind
Eugene Field 1850 (St. Louis) – 1895 (Chicago)
Have you ever heard the wind go "Yooooo"?
'T is a pitiful sound to hear!
It seems to chill you through and through
With a strange and speechless fear.
'T is the voice of the night that broods outside
When folk should be asleep,
And many and many's the time I've cried
To the darkness brooding far and wide
Over the land and the deep:
Whom do you want, O lonely night,
That you wail the long hours through?"
And the night would say in its ghostly way:
"Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!"
My mother told me long ago
(When I was a little tad)
That when the night went wailing so,
Somebody had been bad;
And then, when I was snug in bed,
Whither I had been sent,
With the blankets pulled up round my head,
I'd think of what my mother'd said,
And wonder what boy she meant!
And "Who's been bad to-day?" I'd ask
Of the wind that hoarsely blew,
And the voice would say in its meaningful way:
"Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!"
That this was true I must allow -
You'll not believe it, though!
Yes, though I'm quite a model now,
I was not always so.
And if you doubt what things I say,
Suppose you make the test;
Suppose, when you've been bad some day
And up to bed are sent away
From mother and the rest -
Suppose you ask, "Who has been bad?"
And then you'll hear what's true;
For the wind will moan in its ruefulest tone:
"Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!"
Scheme | axbxcdccdxbeAAA fgfghihhixbeAAA jfjfekeekgbxAAA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111010111 110100111 11111101 1010101 11011011111 111101 010010111 101010101 1001001 11111101 11101101 0011101101 1 1 1 11011101 1110101 11011101 10111 01111101 101111 101011111 1111111 0101111 01111111 101111 00111011001 1 1 1 11111101 110111 11110101 11111 01111111 011101 01111111 01111101 110001 01111111 011111 101110111 1 1 1 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,345 |
Words | 264 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 15, 15, 15 |
Lines Amount | 45 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 340 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 85 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 17, 2023
- 1:20 min read
- 212 Views
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"The night wind" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/13083/the-night-wind>.
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